Boosting regenerative medicine

30.05.2012 - Regenerative medicine centres foster their translational approach. An international initiative formed in Germany, a new centre is opened in Scotland.

Edinburgh/Enschede/Seville/Berlin/Toronto – The Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine (SCRM) officially started operations on May 28. The SCRM will conduct cutting-edge stem cell research to find new therapies for Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, motor neuron disease and heart and liver disease. Up to 250 scientists will work at the centre, which is funded by the University of Edinburgh, the Medical Research Council, Scottish Enterprise and the British Heart Foundation with up to £54m. The SCRM will put an special emphasis on translational efforts, turning laboratory discoveries faster into treatments. An additional newly founded £24m bioincubator, named „Nine, Edinburgh Bioquarter“ offers lab and office space to start-up ventures and established biotech companies.

Just days before, the Regenerative Medicine Coalition constituted itself in Germany’s capital city Berlin. Six translational medicine centres from Europe and North America joined forces to push stem cell based medicine forward. The Berlin-Brandenburg Centre for Regenerative Therapies (BRCT, Berlin, Germany), the Centre for Commercialisation of Regenerative Medicine (Toronto, Canada), the MIRA Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine (Enschede, The Netherlands), the Andalusian Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine Centre (Seville, Spain), the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine (Pittsburgh, USA) and the Institute for Regenerative Medicine (Winston Salem, USA) are among the founding members. „We plan to jointly tackle projects in order to accelerate the development of therapies”, announced Frank Lauter from BRCT.

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